An RT-award-winning literary agent with 20 years experience in numerous genres opens up about her experience and adventures in publishing and the world beyond it.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

An Agent's New Year's Resolutions

You probably think that a literary agent's New Year resolutions should include things like keep up to date with query letters or take on new clients or sell more books. But when you've been doing this as long as I have (almost a quarter century), the last thing you want is more. What you want is better, and/or more efficient.

So, this year I want every single one of my clients, whether fiction or nonfiction, to be under both traditional and epub contract. This way, they should never have a week or a month when they have nothing to write.

And every author I represent should be in twitter and facebook and Goodreads, and comment and review books they love on Amazon. If you want someone to give you a good review, pay it forward. It's not rocket science.

I do not want to add another print book to my already buckling bookcases, unless I throw (or give away) another book. I recently redid some of the rooms of my home office and went through books from my adolescence, which I remembered loving, but when I pulled out the paperbacks, the pages flew out. Let's be real, I will never read those copies of those books again. So I am going to throw those books out and download what I want.

I completely agree with the Facebook/Twitter accounts. After reading a novel, the first thing I do is search for them on Facebook (and when possible try to "Friend" them lol), and follow them on Twitter.

Would love to see a post where you break down how many queries you received, how many manuscripts you requested, and how many of these you signed on (if not too personal).

Wow, this got me thinking...I have so many fave adolescence books lining the shelves of my bookcases that I just couldn't bear to part with. It's like they're a piece of my life, you know? Sure, I can buy the e-books, but, I don't know...every time I pull one of my young-girl books out, see the faded cover, flip through the tattered pages, all the past feelings come off the shelf with it...

Better, more efficient, and leaner...certainly rings true in many facets. Nice, clear aims - traditional and epub most certainly is the only way forward. And having a web profile (whether own website, FB, Twitter, commenting on blogs) is another must. I am still in the aspiring camp, yet this journey has just begun for me. I am surprising myself that I am beginning to enjoy the ancillary parts of what a writer does. All the best for 2012.

I totally agree with the social media aspect you mentioned. I've even found myself gravitating to search engines when I read a good book by a new author. I ask myself: hmm, does this writer have a Facebook, a twitter, something--anything. To those that do, I've dropped a line or two, thanking them for an entertaining read. And what a good impression I have of those who actually responded--I will definitely be buying their next books just on the basis of impression alone,